The Ground She Walked
by grumkinsnark
Summary: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.


**The Ground She Walked

* * *

**

On October first, 2003, he meets her and she meets him and they fight, they fight all the time, but they never go to bed angry. She looks up at him and he looks down at her, and all is forgiven. He'd move Heaven and Earth for her if she asked, and she'd wait a thousand years for him if she had to.

On August sixth, 2005, he walks to a store whose windows sparkle with the treasures they hold, the glittering diamonds, deep sapphires, the shimmery platinum, the bright gold. He walks in, looks at only the rings and not the prices, even though he can't even pay tuition. The man who helps has an air of pity, but he doesn't care. He finds the one in the very back of the store, where no one else stands. It has a thin band of silver, the diamond is small, and it costs him all he has, but he only has to imagine it on her finger for the rest of forever and it makes it worthwhile. He hides it in his sock drawer, waiting for the moment.

On November third, 2005, he plans to ask her a question, and he prays her answer is yes. He makes reservations at her favorite restaurant, he calls her mother, even her estranged father, to ask their permission, he cuts his hair so it's out of his eyes. He memorizes his speech with sweat running down his temples, he buys an ironed shirt and new pants.

On October thirty-first, 2005, his brother breaks in and steals him away, leaving her wondering. She finds the ring in his drawer and cries over its simplistic beauty, and bakes him cookies for when he comes home—safe and sound because he has to, he just has to—and bakes some extra for his brother just 'cause.

On November second, 2005, he comes home, grabs one and grins.

On November second, 2005, she dies in an inferno of fire and blood, stuck to the ceiling with no hope of movement. She lives to see his eyes widen, his body scramble as he looks in panic at her, and he screams a scream she's never heard.

On November second, 2005, his brother saves him but can't save her, and right before the pain becomes unbearable, she feels herself fade, and in an instant, she's standing in the field she used to love when she was a little girl. Only it's not, she can tell, because it's a little too perfect, a little too peaceful. And yet all she can feel is peace.

On January fourth, 2006, she shuts her eyes and vanishes, lands next to a telephone pole invisible to everyone but him. She drinks in his face, his body, his eyes, and he stares at her in a mixture of raw pain and love, and when he and his brother round the corner, she's gone, and his heart hardens.

On July first, 2006, he meets a woman, a woman she thinks is stunning, one she thinks is good for him. He looks at the woman with eyes full of adoration, and as he makes his promise to come see the woman again, its intent is pure but she knows it isn't to be. She knows that in another world, another lifetime, he and the woman could live happily ever after, like he and she could have, but people don't exist in _could_ and _should_ and _maybe_, and he drives away, the woman's kiss lingering on his lips.

On August second, 2006, his brother dies, almost dies, and she stands in the field, ready to tell him he's an asshole and then embrace him like the family they almost became. But it never comes—his soul is yanked backwards, downwards, and he comes back to life, revived by a Hell-born host.

On January thirtieth, 2007, he's taken over by evil, an oily black nothingness seeping into his pores and suffocating his own untarnished soul. She can't break the barrier between Here and There, can't free him from the corrupt invader, can only watch as he kills, threatens, shoots, tortures. Can only watch as his brother manages to free him, but feels in her gut that all isn't well.

On April twenty-ninth, 2007, he falls. She gasps in pain as the knife cuts through his back, through his spine, and his blood creeps throughout his body in chaotic rivulets, and her heart pangs as his brother shouts and tries to breathe life back in.

On April twenty-ninth, 2007, they meet again. He smiles and kisses her, she smiles and kisses him back. They spend three days together, ready to walk into the sunset, when his face contorts, and he isn't able to finish his _I love you_ before he's tethered away, his brother selling his own soul for his. She weeps, even though she knows she shouldn't, and she weeps some more when he doesn't remember.

On May fifteenth, 2008, his brother is clawed to Hell, his body shreds and his spirit worse. He's destined to spend eternity there, as she is Here, screaming and sobbing and wailing and gasping. Once she thinks she sees him, but he's dragged down again. Once he thinks he sees her, a vision in white, but she vanishes into light, and he into red.

On September eighteenth, 2008, his brother wakes, his body new and pristine, his scars gone, his life back. She watches as the brothers reunite, and she waits for him to tell his brother about all the bad, awful, _wrong_ things he's been doing, but he doesn't, and

On September twenty-fifth, 2008, his brother finds out.

On May eighth, 2009, he chokes his brother, almost to death, and snarls hate, hate she would never have thought she'd hear out of his perfect mouth. But he says them, sober as they come, even if the _wrong_ blood is coursing through his veins. He says them, and not long after, he brings about the end of the world. She watches helplessly as the Earth begins to burn, the byproduct of a petulant, angelic devil and a broken man.

On August twenty-fourth, 2009, she seethes as Satan himself mimics her form and uses it to try and lure him to evil once more. As Satan himself slithers words she'd never say in a million years to him, tarnishing her image. As Satan himself fucks with his mind by making him think she'd be that cruel, and then reveals himself to him with a sick smile and suffocating pride.

On May thirteenth, 2010, he says yes to the most impure being to ever exist.

On May fourteenth, 2010, he saves the world, sacrifices himself. Sacrifices his younger brother. Leaves his older brother with a shattered face and a shattered soul.

On May fourteenth, 2010, he's granted the Pearly Gates, and she rushes to meet him, and _finally_ he's here. Back with her. He's disoriented at first, expecting to be Below, but she kisses him and says that he'd done the ultimate good. He'd beaten the Devil, put that bastard back in his cage for now and for always. If that isn't good, she tells him, what is?

But on May eighteenth, 2010, she realizes that he still needs his brother—still, or perhaps more than ever. He says no, eyes shining as he kisses her desperately, says that he needs _her_, that his time is up. It rips her heart in half as she closes her eyes and places her hand on his chest. Go, she whispers. Go, it's not your time yet. No, he protests, I won't leave you, not again, he says. She presses her lips to his forehead and with the power temporarily bestowed within her, he slides from her touch and stands beneath a lamp, watching his brother with sad, haunted eyes. He looks skyward then, and she looks downward, and for a moment they see each other.

And on May nineteenth, 2010, and every day thereafter, he looks skyward and she looks downward, and for a moment they see each other, knowing that when his time really is up, when he and his brother go out fighting until their last breaths, they will appear before her. His brother will plant awkward lips on her cheek before sauntering away in search of an angel he can charm, his form dissipating into the breeze of the field.

And on his final day, he swoops her up just like in the books, and upon the ground she walked and the stars that wink, they smile.


End file.
